{"id":12140,"date":"2012-07-06T00:14:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T22:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/soccer-top-duo-to-meet-in-nations-cup-qualifiers\/"},"modified":"2012-07-06T00:14:15","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T22:14:15","slug":"soccer-top-duo-to-meet-in-nations-cup-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/soccer-top-duo-to-meet-in-nations-cup-qualifiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer- Top duo to meet in Nations Cup qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Mark Gleeson<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, July 5<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Heavyweight contenders<br \/>\nIvory Coast and Senegal have been drawn together in the final<br \/>\nround of qualifying for the next African Nations Cup finals.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The draw means at least one more of the continent&#8217;s top<br \/>\ncontenders will miss out on next year&#8217;s tournament in South<br \/>\nAfrica, joining record winners Egypt on the sidelines.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Ivorians host the first leg of the knockout clash in<br \/>\nSeptember and then travel to Dakar for the return in October.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>For a golden generation of Ivorians players, who have been<br \/>\nto two successive World Cups and reached the final of two of the<br \/>\nlast four Nations Cups, it presents a tough test.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It is also arguably the last chance for the likes of Didier<br \/>\nDrogba, Kolo Toure and Didier Zokora to live up to their role as<br \/>\nkingpins in Africa&#8217;s top-ranked team and win an elusive<br \/>\ncontinental championship.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Ivorians did not concede a goal at the finals in<br \/>\nEquatorial Guinea and Gabon earlier this year, but still<br \/>\ncontrived to lose the penalty shoot-out in the final against<br \/>\nZambia.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A highly fancied Senegal, boasting a number of<br \/>\nEuropean-based players, went to the 2012 finals as best<br \/>\nperformer in the preliminaries, only to lose all three group<br \/>\ngames and suffer the embarrassment of being the first team<br \/>\neliminated.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Despite that setback, they were expected to provide another<br \/>\ncredible challenge at the 2013 tournament, but to do so now will<br \/>\nfirst need to get past the Ivorians.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mark Gleeson JOHANNESBURG, July 5 (Reuters) &#8211; Heavyweight contenders Ivory Coast and Senegal have been drawn together in the final round of qualifying for the next African Nations Cup finals. The draw means at least one more of the continent&#8217;s top contenders will miss out on next year&#8217;s tournament in South Africa, joining record [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}